358MB dedicated vs 1075MB shared

Both Notebooks have 2.0Ghz and 4GB RAM. So which has better graphics?

 

Dedicated is pretty much always better than integrated.

 

What graphics cards are they? Are they two versions of the same card?

 

Even when the shared is so much larger? Ok then, thanks for the help. I've been stuck between two laptops and now I got one pinned down to buy.

 

No idea what GPU's you may be talking about or weighing...

You're looking at it wrong though, memory is not the tool to measure graphics power by. The most important things to look at are the #of shaders, clock speeds, memory bus size, and then the speed of the memory.

Concerning your oversimplified question, shared memory sucks and should almost never be considered when comparing graphics power. To use a cliche':a bird in hand is worth more than 2 in the bush.

 

Mine is dedicated and have shared memory. Maybe yours does the same. I think it's called turbo cache on nvidia

 

Nvidia calls it Turbocache while ATI calls it Hyper Memory. This feature allows the GPU to access some of the system RAM when it exceeds it's own built in memory.

In reality, this was a marketing scheme to convince buyers they were getting more graphics power. As we all know, most uninformed customers believe MB of graphics memory means better graphics power. Nvidia and ATI took all their bottom of the barrel GPU's on laptops, slapped on 32-128mb of dedicated memory, then programmed the thing to steal system RAM from your system and then marketed the graphics card as having 256-512mb of memory.

I consider this extremely dishonest on both these guys' part.

On my Thinkpad with an X1300, it has 64mb dedicated and up 256mb of "total video memory". This card is so slow it's lucky to utilize all 64m of its own dedicated memory.

Moral of the story: ATI and Nvidia will use any unethical techniques available to deceive their customers.

 

Well that is something but at least it was also helpful. Hey now that I got that down the card is an Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 now I know that's probably not the best but do you know if it's an integrated card? Maybe I can switch it out later...

 

Don't even think about switching it out. Upgradable cards are rare enough, and that is integrated. And yes, the GMA X3100 is integrated.

 

Anything made by Intel right now is integrated graphics.

 

Does the x3100 has any dedicated memory at all?

 

nope, not now, not ever.

 

I remember in the bios or vista it says that x3100 has 8mb dedicated memory, I know it's nothing nowadays, but it's still dedicated

 

when i started with pc`s i had a 1/4 mb 256kb graphics card!!!!